The commercial trucking company Navistar International and Volkswagen AG’s Truck and Bus will be jointly launching an electric medium-duty truck in the North American market by late 2019, company execs have revealed.

The two firms will be jointly developing hardware and systems that will be used by both of them — this includes “connectivity” systems to keep trucks connected to the internet and each other.

Andreas Renschler

The two companies will also be collaborating on the development of the next generation of “Big Bore” diesel powertrains, Volkswagen Truck CEO Andreas Renschler and Navistar CEO Troy Clarke revealed in an interview with Reuters.

All of this news of course follows on Volkswagen’s relatively recent acquisition of a 16.6% stake in Navistar.

Reuters provides more: “Commercial truck makers are investing in electrification as regulators and policy makers have stepped up pressure to curtail or eliminate pollution from diesel engines in big cities. … The new electric truck for North America will be a Class 6 or 7 truck based on a Navistar vehicle, and aimed at urban delivery customers.

“Volkswagen will test nine electric trucks in Austria that will offer payloads of about 18 tons and ranges of about 180 kilometers between charges, Renschler said. Rival Daimler AG said last week delivered the first of a smaller range of electric delivery trucks to customers in New York.”

The plan is apparently for this Volkswagen + Navistar collaboration to provide the two companies with a solution if some cities start banning diesel trucks due to concerns about air pollution. How likely is that in the next few years?